Press Release

2012

World Chess Champion & NIIT MindChampion Viswanathan Anand felicitates the winners of - NIIT National Corporate Chess Championship 2012Shares his ‘Winning Strategies from Chess’TCS wins Corporate Team Championship trophy and Naveen Jain from Accenture, Bangalore wins Corporate Individual Championship trophy in Division I of Rated Players
Bangalore, July 29, 2012: At an event organized in the city today, NIIT MindChampion and World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand awarded the winners of NIIT National Corporate Chess Championship 2012. During the function, Anand also played simultaneous Chess with top 20 players of the tournament and spoke on “Winning strategies from Chess”. Mr. I. R. Perumal, IAS, Principal Secretary, Government of Karnataka was present as the the Chief guest for the award distribution ceremony.

NIIT MindChampion Viswanathan Anand presented the Corporate Chess Team Championship trophy to TCS and Corporate Individual Championship trophy to Naveen Jain from Accenture, Bangalore in Division one of rated players. The Smt. Leela Biswas memorial award for the Most Promising Women Player of the Championship was given to Sakthilaksmi S from Infosys, Chennai.

Infosys Chennai Team A and Infosys Bangalore won the 2nd and 3rd prize respectively in the team championship category while Vijay Keerti K from Wipro and Sriram Sarja from TCS were declared winners for the 2nd and 3rd positions in the Individual category of Division I rated players. Rajeev Ranjan from Oracle was declared the winner of Individual team category in Division II un-rated players while Mayank Shridhar from Infosys, Bangalore and Partha Sarathy from SBI won 2nd and 3rd prize in the Individual team category of Division II un-rated players.

The top boards present during the occasion were Sydney Lewis from Yahoo, Aniket R Pawashe from Deloitte, Pavan Prabhakar from IBM and Arun Srinivaas from TCS Bangalore.

Speaking on Winning Strategies from Chess, World Chess Champion and NIIT MindChampion Viswanathan Anand said, “Chess is a classic game of strategy. A game that puts to test the ability to think ahead, anticipate every move of the opponent while strengthening logical thinking & concentration. Chess can play an important role in building leaders of tomorrow.”

“Playing Simultaneous Chess with young professionals at the NIIT National Corporate Chess Championship 2012, has been a great experience. I am confident that they will be able to replicate these moves in their careers as well and emerge champions in their respective fields”, added NIIT MindChampion Anand.

NIIT National Corporate Chess Championship 2012 saw widespread participation by more than 60 Top corporates from across India including TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Siemens, IBM, Accenture, GE, Manipal Hospital, INTEL, Texas Instruments, Nous Info Systems, Ness Technologies, SAP Labs, Aurigene Discovery, NTT DATA, Biocon, HP, Ocwen Financials, BEL, Open-Silicon, Goldman Sachs, Robert BOSCH, Motorola Mobility, Yahoo, ITTIAM, Informatic Business Solutions, Oracle, NetApp, Mangalore Port Trust, Deloitte, Broadcom, Thomson Reuters, AMD, Target Corporation, MCube, Fidelity, MuSigma, Google, SBI, Paddyfields in both Team and Individual category. There were about 250 participants and 35 teams vying for the titles in the tournament.

Mr. Unnikrishnan K Raghavan, Vice President, Individual Learning Solutions, NIIT said, “Chess has always had a direct co-relation with the development of strategic thought process, which is one of the key requirements in today’s competitive work environment. NIIT Corporate Chess provides a platform for working professionals to enjoy the game & get a chance to interact with World Chess Champion & NIIT MindChampion Viswanathan Anand on strategies from Chess.”

“It gives us immense pleasure to make this tournament, a national calendar event this year. Encouraged by the overwhelming response, we look forward to taking this initiative to a greater level of participation in the years to come”, added Mr. Raghavan.

This year the Championship was held at a national level for the first time. NIIT had earlier organized two annual Corporate Chess Championships on a State level in the city of Bangalore, in 2009 and 2011. On both occasions, the Championships were held over 4 days- first 2 days for Team Championship & the next 2 days were for Individual Championship. In the Team Championship, TCS, Infosys & Wipro were the 1st, 2nd & 3rd winners respectively in 2009. During the 2011 championship, it was TCS, Wipro & Infosys, which took the top three slots.

The NIIT National Corporate Chess Championship took place at Yavanika, State Youth Centre, Nrupathunga Road, Bangalore from July 26th to 29th 2012, supported by Bangalore District Chess Association, United Karnataka Chess Association ®, Indus Business School & Pepsi. Maam Entertainment was the producer of this event.

About NIIT
NIIT Limited, a leading Global Talent Development Corporation and Asia’s premier IT trainer, offers learning and knowledge solutions across 38 countries. Leading IT journal Dataquest has conferred upon NIIT the ‘Top IT Training Company’ award successively for the past 19 years, since the inception of this category.

NIIT’s Individual Learning Business offerings include industry-endorsed programs for students seeking careers in IT – GNIIT and Edgeineers, and Global Net Plus for IT professionals. The company has introduced “India’s first cloud campus”, through its new-age GNIIT program. This offers students a higher mobility as they can access courseware using Netbooks to connect seamlessly to NIIT’s Cloud Campus network.

NIIT’s Corporate Learning Solutions offers Managed Training Services including integrated learning solutions (strategic consulting, learning design, content development, delivery, technology, assessment and learning management) to Fortune 500 companies, Universities, Technology companies, Training corporations and Publishing houses.

NIIT Yuva Jyoti, a joint venture between NIIT and NSDC, offers vocational skills training programs to enhance employability of youth across India.

NIIT has provided computer-based learning to over 15,000 government and private schools. The futuristic NIIT NGuru range of learning solutions for schools comprises Interactive Classrooms, Math Lab, IT Wizard programs and Quick School (Education Resource Planning software).

NIIT Imperia - Centre for Advanced Learning, offers Executive Learning Programs in association with leading Business schools in India, KPMG, Google India and Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), using the synchronous learning platform.

NIIT Institute of Finance Banking & Insurance (IFBI), formed by NIIT with equity participation from ICICI Bank, offers programs for individuals and corporates in Banking, Financial Services and Insurance.

NIIT Institute of Process Excellence Limited, a NIIT-GENPACT venture (NIIT Uniqua), offers complete training outsourcing services to the Business Process, Knowledge and Technology Services industry to create business models that enhance productivity and lower costs.

NIIT has been ranked among the ‘Top 10 India’s Best Companies to Work for- 2012’ by Great Places to Work Institute and ‘Top 25 Best Employers in India- 2011’ by Aon Hewitt. The company has also been voted the second most trusted education brand in India by Brand Equity- Nielsen Survey 2011.

For media queries, please contact:
Prateek Chatterjee
Associate Vice President & Head Corporate Communications, NIIT Limited
Ph: (Cell) +91 9910201085, (Dir) +91 124 4293041
Email:prateek.chatterjee@niit.com